


How To Become A Snake

by Anonymous



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Ableist Language, Dialogue Heavy, Gen, Self-Hatred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:13:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23308945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: This is from past August, originally was mostly dialogue (and then... well. I hope it's alright). Was going to be part of something else, but that *isn't* gen.
Relationships: Demoman & Soldier (Team Fortress 2)
Kudos: 19
Collections: Anonymous





	How To Become A Snake

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [you don’t have to love your body](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/571816) by i have no teeth. 



His laugh would be louder if it wasn’t reduced into a wheeze, Demoman pressumes. Of course Soldier was going to laugh. Already with his arms crossed, Demo slouches, wanting to disappear.

“Soldier, I, I wasn’t kiddin’ when I said that _hate_ meself... I cannae help it...”

Soldier stops dead, blinking, finally considering the weight of the matter. He leans then, looking for Demo’s gaze, who avoids him by turning his face to the other direction.

“ _...Why?!_ ” He moves closer, insisting in talking closer to his friend’s face, still incredulous about what he heard a few moments ago. “How could you, _of anyone_ , hate yourself? _LISTEN UP maggot_ —”

Demoman stands up, abruptly. He points at Soldier, in an accusatory manner.

“No, no! _YER_ the one who has to listen this time...!” Soldier crosses his arms, but doesn’t try to argue back. “I’m tryin’ to explain somethin’, Soldier.”

Silent. How he is supposed to explain this? He already has said too much. Saying that he believes nobody likes him seem to be a too similar delusion, another side of the same problem, from the very same bag—besides, he might not remember well, but he’s sure that when he is drunk he babbles about exactly this.

That’s the difference now. He is mostly sober this time. Not a joke now.

Soldier sighs loudly. “Well, weren’t you going to explain—?”

“ _Shhh_ , just wait. Wait...” 

Demo is not done pondering. Although, if he doesn’t jump to the pool now he won’t explain anything ever, at least not in the near future.

He exhales from his mouth, while sitting back where he was before. “Okay, listen. I’ve hate meself for a good chunk of me life. I don’t have the most nice story, sorta say, ‘n’ often people haven’t been nice to me either. Nae like I hadn’t been shitty in the past either.” He laughs, listless.

Soldier nods, slowly. “I am _not_ a “nice” person either...” Definitely not. He is not _that_ delusional. “...and I _think_ I like myse—”

“Nae everyone is the same, Soldier. Ye know, people don’t react in the same way...”

Demo doesn’t want to fall into _that_ rabbit hole.

“I see...” Soldier tilts his head. Still can’t quite believe what he is hearing. “I still think that you’re too handsome and intelligent to hate yourself. You know. _Not like me._ ”

“What?! No...!”

Demo is sure he’s none of that. Or _is he?_ He grins, thinking that he _is_ quite handsome, picturing his face. Until he sees his lack of one eye in his mental image. His smile fades again.

He squeezes the mattress below him with both hands.

Demo gulps. “Soldier. Do you hate yerself?”

“...I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

“Do you like yerself?”

“I don’t know either. Maybe.” He doesn’t like this sudden interrogatory (and he usually enjoys interrogatories). “I don’t think about it.”

“Because that’s bullshite, eh?” Soldier nods unduly. “Well, I think that I hate meself most of the time. Ye know, thinkin’ in that. A lot. Even if I _don’t want tae_. I can’t help it.”

_Oh._

“That... can’t be good.”

“ _It’s not,_ ” whispers Demo.

“But what can you do?”

“I mean...” Demo shows his bottle of scrumpy, with a smirk that would have more confidence in another context.

“...that isn’t that.”

“I dunno really. Is not like I haven’t tried in the past. I’m old, and I don’t think I will ever stop hatin’ me, or will like meself much...”

“Oh, have you forget how cocky you get in battle?”

Demo chortles.

“ _I don’t need help!_ ” quotes Soldier, “Then you get rushed by the enemy Scout!”

“ _Ach_ , well. The rest of the time I’m nae that, positive, about meself. Isnae like I want become Scout or somethin’.”

Soldier laughs. That’s another whole level of “self-confidence.”

“I think that I get it better, but I’m not sure.”

“Let’s see. Is like... Is like my mind and my body were fightin’ each other. Or, that my brain, well, that I’m more than a wee crazy.”

“ _Mind and Body?_ Bullcrap! You are just _ONE_. Your mind is your brain!” Soldier exclaims. “I mean, unless you’re thinking about your soul.”

“Hmm...” That’s something that Demo hasn’t really considered before. “My brain is still a wee fuck up though, no matter what.” Starting from his changing moods.

“...Demo.” 

Soldier’ll be never comfy talking about brains, as if they were “good or bad”—albeit, he doesn’t mind talking about blow out brains they see at job—But this instead, is getting accidentally, weirdly _eugenetic_.

“Right, I’m sorry. I’ll stop talkin’ ‘bout brains like I was Medic.”

Everybody is the same for Medic. Anyone can be a _subject_.

“Don’t apologize. It’s just, I don’t think no one here has a “good” brain.”

“That’s true.”

How killers could be good of their heads. _Ha!_

...Which means he’s fucked too.

Demoman lays in his back, his mouth set in a line. Soon after Soldier imitates him, laying next to him, their boots soles dirtying the already in poor shape wall.

Silence falls on them, both staring at the ceiling, as they were looking for answers up there, water stains in lieu of shining stars.

After a while, Soldier sits sharply, startling Demo. 

“I think...” he begins, “I think you should get... used to live in your body, to be yourself. Thinking less would be good too... I’m sorry I can’t give you a better advice.”

There is not much else he can say, he infers. 

Demo sits too, following Soldier.

“ _Aw_ , don’t be sorry, that’s a solid advice!”

Soldier chuckles. He would laugh with more energy, however, he assumes Demo will not follow his suggestion, and Demo must be trying to make him feel smart (and not offend him).

 _Getting used_. _Getting used to oneself._

“But, _for me?_ I dunno...”

“Don’t give up already!”

“I’m in me _forties_ , Soldier. But I can still try, I suppose.”

He grins. “Drinking less could be also good.”

“ _Ugh_ , dinnae ask me for too much.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is from past August, originally was mostly dialogue (and then... well. I hope it's alright). Was going to be part of something else, but that *isn't* gen.


End file.
